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Chinese Qualifying Quotes II

Force India
Paul di Resta (8th, Q3 – 1m 36.190s)
“I could not have wished for more today and it’s nice to get into Q3.

“Our race pace seems to be not too bad, so fingers crossed we can pick up some points again tomorrow as we have in the previous two Grands Prix.”

Adrian Sutil (11th, Q2 – 1m 35.874s)
“It was a good qualifying and I am looking forward to the race tomorrow. This weekend has so far been much better than the last ones, with no real problems so it looks good for us. It was a little bit difficult at the end of the session when the red flag came out and I missed out on a final flying lap, but overall I am very happy and our car performance is improving well.”

Renault
Vitaly Petrov (10th, Q3 – no time)
“I am very disappointed with what happened after having just completed a very fast lap which put me in fourth position at the end of Q2. The car lost power so I stopped on the side of the track.

“The positive thing is the car was looking fast and I hope I can make up some ground tomorrow from P10 on the grid.”

Nick Heidfeld (16th, Q2 – 1m 36.611s)
“It’s quite frustrating to be starting from P16 because I don’t think it’s a fair reflection of our pace. We were always going to do one run on the soft tyres in Q2, but the red flag made the last few minutes on Q2 very busy.

“Our race pace is definitely better than our grid position, but starting from P16 is not going to be easy. I think it’s a track where you can overtake so hopefully I can make a good start, like in the previous two races, and fight for points.”

Alan Permane, Renault chief engineer
“We are still investigating exactly what happened (to Vitaly’s car). It’s clear that he lost power and the engine died. We believe the air supply to the engine was cut off. It couldn’t be restarted and the car got stuck in gear, which is why he stopped on the track.”

Sauber
Sergio Perez (12th, Q2 – 1m 36.053s)
“Generally we made some changes to the car and I feel much more comfortable with the handling now. This explains the improvements here in Shanghai from Friday to today, but also the comparison to Malaysia.”

Kamui Kobayashi (13th, Q3 – 1m 36.236s)
“It is a shame not to be in Q3 for the first time this year. In Q2 I had a problem with the first set of soft tyres. I just didn’t have enough grip, and we have to find out why.

“However, I believe points are still within reach as our overall performance is good.”

James Key, Sauber technical director
“We felt we had the pace and the car to get to Q3, but Q2 was a bit of a drama with Vitaly Petrov stopping.

“From where we are I still think we can score points, and it is a little bit of a topsy turvy grid so it will be an interesting race.”

Williams
Rubens Barrichello (15th, Q2 – 1m 36.465s)
“I’ve been having a weekend of experiments. We tried a new version of the exhaust in practice; we do not fully understand it yet, so we went into qualifying with our original set-up.

“We’ve made progress since Malaysiaso I’m looking for points.”

Pastor Maldonado (17th, Q2 – 1m 36.956s)
“I’m a bit disappointed by the red flag because the lap I was on at the time was looking good. We could have fought for a place in the top ten today so it looks like we’ve made some improvements with the car. We need to keep working and concentrate our minds for tomorrow. I’m looking for some points.”

Sam Michael, Williams technical director
“Our target for tomorrow is reliability and to be in a position to fight for points.”

Lotus
Heikki Kovalainen (19th, Q1 – 1m 37.894s)
“From my perspective I’m very happy with that. In the race conditions we’re definitely stronger and you can see that we’re steadily doing what we want which is to keep pushing towards the midfield.”

Jarno Trulli (20th, Q1 – 1m 38.318s)
“I am really happy from the driving point of view because I pushed hard out there today and said over the radio that I think I got as much as I possibly could out of the car today.

“I think we keep on doing a good job across the whole team and after a good weekend from the reliability point of view we should have a good race tomorrow.”

Mike Gascoyne, Lotus chief technical officer
“A trouble free day but disappointing in terms of performance. In the cooler conditions we clearly struggled more with the tyres than last week and yesterday and we were some way off the level of performance we expected.

“However, we have seen that even in these conditions our race pace is much better and we are considerably more competitive so I think we can take the race to the midfield group in front.”

Virgin
Jerome D’Ambrosio (21st, Q1 – 1m 39.119s)
“I’m very happy. What I take away from today is that I continue to improve, and although I still have a lot to learn, I’m going in the right direction. That’s the most important thing for me. It was a good Saturday.”

Timo Glock (22nd, Q1 – 1m 39.708s)
“Overall a better day than yesterday because we were at least able to complete our programme, but we were not able to get the best result in qualifying which is disappointing.”

Narain Karthikeyan (24th, Q1 – 1m 40.445s)
“The day started off well with the third practice session where the car went really well. I think that I could have gone quicker and done a better time. We have a better package and qualifying shouldn’t be an issue anymore, our target is now to get closer to Virgin. I definitely need to get some laps under my belt, my aim is to finish the race.”